Material Shift Advances among Copper Products Users

Some copper fabricated products users are shifting to other materials than copper when Japanese official copper ingot price, the indicator for copper alloy products prices, stays at over 900,000 yen per tonne recently, which is higher by more than 60% from the beginning of 2006. The material shift is remarkable among the users of copper tube heat exchanger, copper plate roofing and copper used sundries.Middle- and small-sized manufacturers of tubular heat exchanger recently prefer stainless steel tube to copper tube. Some manufacturers shift from rolled titanium to copper tube at first and to stainless steel tube for the next.Metal roofing demand is shifting from copper plate to colored galvanizing steel sheet. Dealer source said the demand became remarkably worse for copper plate as the roofing material. The copper roofing demand is regulated only for sub materials such for repair or guttering materials. As to copper sundries, the users are shifting from copper plate and brass plate to other materials.Copper fabricated products dealers are concerned whether the demand could recover when the copper price calms to the moderate level.